About Me

Anthony Balducci, 60, studied journalism at Baruch College in Manhattan and earned a criminology degree at the University of Florida. His first book, a biography of film comedian Lloyd Hamilton, was published by McFarland in 2009. The Funny Parts, a book detailing the history of gags and routines, was published by McFarland in 2012.

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Ties that Bind Us

Harold Lloyd had worn a flowing Windsor tie much like Hamilton's tie when he first created his Glass Character, but he made a point to discard the tie as he worked to refine the way his character looked. Lloyd had the idea of making his character look like an ordinary young man and the tie, in his estimation, "leaned a little towards the comic."

This tie does look silly, like something a clown would be expected to wear, but this type of tie was in fact something very distinguished gentlemen wore in the Victorian era. Hamilton, who said he dressed his character to look like a "shabby gentleman," may have taken into consideration the tie's history as high fashion when he adopted it as part of his comic costume.